Sunday, September 7, 2008

(Did you catch the inflection in “well”? The inflection that says have a seat ‘cause this is gonna be good and take awhile?)

If you didn’t … do, because it is and will.

So here’s Uncle Jack – or at least the way he looked when one of the Disney artists sketched him. I always thought he looked very continental in this drawing. He thought he looked like a 1930’s Chicago gangster. And since I knew he’d lived a few years in Chicago, I would suspect he knew what he was talking about. But I don’t know that for a fact.

Uncle Jack had been a merchant seaman. I think. He told me that he had once climbed a mountain in the Himalayas. I was told that at one time he had been employed as a rodeo clown. At another time he had managed a New York modeling agency (briefly. It was owned by another relative, and Jack could have inherited it if he had liked the business. He didn’t.) He did own a few Texas oil wells, and knew by first name every man who worked for him.

And there are a whole SLEW of stories about the things Jack did for a living, and I believe all of them. For one thing, I never knew my uncle to lie (or brag, for that matter.) Most of the things I knew about him I learned from other people. Jack always had an abiding interest in a great variety of occupations and social activities, and tried “hands on” to as many of them as he could.

I not only found his life fascinating, but only later in life did I realize how much I had emulated it.

When I knew Uncle Jack he owned a real estate agency in Pasadena California. He was a truly gentle human being, open and soft spoken. Men felt very comfortable around him, and women … well, he outlived three wives.

I never met anyone who didn’t like him.

And the feeling was mutual. Jack loved people – all types and sizes. The picture above shows the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood, California. Uncle Jack lived in the building you see in the background. From the corner window at the 2nd floor level, Uncle Jack could comfortably sit in his living room and watch humanity traipse back and forth in front of him. (And I knew this to be a fact; I distinctly remember sitting there with him while we watched a quite attractive young lady in a bikini leading a purple French poodle down Vine Street at three in the morning. At another time we were sitting there when we heard a resounding “crash.” Looking out the window I saw what looked like a cannon ball imbedded in the side of a truck. Looking up Hollywood boulevard, we saw a man bowling in the middle of the street.)

Jack was involved with the movie business at the time. He didn’t participate in any way – he had absolutely no use for actors. But since he headed a most successful real estate agency, I think a number of producers wanted very much to be his friend.

Jack’s real friends were artists and still photographers, He was on such good terms that a few were so comfortable that they would simply walk in without even bothering to knock. (I personally found this a little unnerving, but Uncle Jack seemed to take pride in this lack of pretense regarding formality, so we never talked about it.) On one such occasion we were sitting there when the door opened and a – creature – whisked past me. Whoever (or whatever) it was headed straight for the bathroom, leaving a pungent odor in it’s wake. Jack and I looked at each other. Even for him this was something new.

A moment later we heard the shower running. Another moment passed, and a man entered that Uncle Jack obviously knew. This man also went into the bathroom, dropped off a large bag, and returned to the living room. Jack and the man talked for about twenty minutes before the bathroom door opened …… and out stepped Sandra Dee. She had been shooting still pictures in the desert, and had stopped at Uncle Jack’s for a quick shower because she “smelled like a horse.” They left, to meet with the press in order to promote the movie she had just completed.

According to my Aunt, this sort of thing happened all the time.

I was in a movie shooting in a remote location the day Uncle Jack died. I didn’t even know about it until after the funeral. His ashes had been scattered over a park he loved and helped create. The day I went there it rained – hard. My uncle was reminding me of how he felt about actors.

It’s interesting, I think, about how profoundly you are influenced by some people and are unaware of it until years later. That’s how it was with Uncle Jack. I often wish I could talk to him one more time.

I guess if there’s a moral here, it’s that you should appreciate people when you have ‘em.

Jack lived in Hollywood in the late 50's when I first met him. Most of what I wrote was from that period. He was retired and living near Palm Springs when you met him. And you are right - I was working in TV, not film, when he died. Thanks for keeping me straight here.

In Xanadu did Kubla Kahna stately pleasure-dome decree:where Alph, the sacred river, ranthrough caverns measureless to mandown to a sunless sea.So twice five miles of fertile groundwith walls and towers were girdled round:And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;And here were forests ancient as the hills,enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

Jack Bunny is the alter ego of a playwright, theatrical director, and drama critic. If you are at a party and see a 150 pound rabbit at the punch bowl, it might be him!

(On the other hand, it might also mean that perhaps you should step away from the punch bowl for awhile.)

Available Plays

ANOTHER DUMB GHOST STORY(Full length)

THE REVENANT(Full length)

CORIE(Full length)

MORGAN(Full length)

VOLLEYS(Full length)

ELYCE TIMES ONE(Full length - written with J.E. Ocean)

THE DISENCHANTED FROG(Children's One-act)

THE ART OF BUILDING BRIDGES(One-act)

FROM MY VANTAGE POINT(One-act)

THE TRIAL(One-act)

WHAT'S NEW IN LATHERDUE?(Reader theatre One-act)

ROUGH DRAFT(One-act)

THE GRAND GILDER(One-act)

Old friend remembered

FAVORITE QUOTES

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.George Bernard Shaw

I hate writing, I love having written.Dorothy Parker

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.

Will Rogers

It must be summer. I can smell California burning.

J.E. Ocean

Starbucks is where certain relationships go to die.

Samantha Stover

I can only answer the question 'What am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question, 'Of what story do I find myself a part?'

Alisdair MacIntyre

Walmart always makes me cry ...

Q

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

Mark Twain

The Bible in the hand of one man is more dangerous than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another.

Harper Lee

Can people stop dying please? Just for a little bit. maybe.

Samantha Stover

Mettle not in the affairs of Dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with ketchup.

Unknown

He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart.

Proverbs 11:29

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

William Congreve

This above all: to thine own self be true.And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.

William Shakespeare

In my many years I have come to the conclusion that one useless person is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a Congress.

John Adams

Wearing underwear is as formal as I get.

Ernest Hemingway

"Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain ..."

Our revels now are ended.

These, our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.